Home, Sweet Home

Sun Herald

Sunday September 7, 2008

Kate Farrelly

There's Australian countryside for sale just beyond the Great Dividing Range, writes Kate Farrelly.

IT'S the price of an inner-city penthouse with fabulous harbour views but, for your $3.6 million, you get three houses and you're looking at about 15,000 times the space.

Springbank is a 473-hectare property five minutes from Oberon's town centre. The owners are ready to retire, leaving new owners not only to capitalise on highly productive pastures, but to enjoy excellent fishing, bushwalking and horse riding.

Selling agent Patrick Bird says the property, which includes three dwellings, is one of the best in the district, with abundant water and approval for a five-lot subdivision.

You'd probably want to have serious farming intentions before you considered a tree change at this end of the market - the owners run prime lamb and beef, and grow premium broccoli.

If it's a smaller, less expensive acreage you're after, the Central West - and Oberon in particular - has plenty to offer.

Wayne Cooper, a consultant to Country Week NSW, left Sydney 17 years ago, first moving to Leura in the Blue Mountains, then to Oberon in 2001 when Leura became overcrowded.

"When you come west from Sydney and drive over the Great Dividing Range, you actually hit real Australian countryside," Cooper says. "This is farming country. But we've also got good industry in the Central West and good transport and we're well located as far as Sydney is concerned."

Cooper says the Central West has a lovely balance between the sophistication of the larger country towns, such as Bathurst and Orange, with smaller towns such as Oberon.

"We have some iconic things around here: the Jenolan Caves, four national parks and the Blue Mountains heritage area," he says.

There is a need for skilled labour in the mines and timber plantation and for workers in hospitality, tourism and retail. Teachers and health workers are also in demand.

Principal of Ray White Oberon, Patrick Bird, says 80 per cent of buyers looking for rural or lifestyle properties hail from either Sydney or the Blue Mountains.

"Oberon has been a popular [with] Sydneysiders for the last 20 years," he says. "This is because of our proximity to Sydney and ... our prices are more attractive than those in the Southern Highlands."

Bird says Oberon has similar amenity and similar countryside to the Southern Highlands, but with a more pronounced rural atmosphere and less development. "The town itself is a true country town as opposed to the more urban towns of Moss Vale and Bowral," he says.

Sydney buyers include retirees, who will often keep a city pad and buy a rural retreat, young families and tradespeople keen to invest in affordable property while maintaining their earning capacity. Tree changers have a preference for small acreages just outside town.

Sydney University honours student Marita Cuomo found that housing costs were a key motivating factor for tree changers. Cuomo is completing a thesis on migration to rural areas after spending three weeks in Oberon, interviewing people who had moved to the town in the past five years.

"The majority of people I spoke to ... wish they had done it earlier, even the younger people," Cuomo says.

The market is quieter in line with the rest of NSW, Bird says, with a large and varied range of properties for sale. Houses in town start from about $200,000 and range up to more than $5 million for large rural holdings.

SPACE FOR THE CHILDREN TO GROW

THE kids are home-schooled, go violin-busking and can watch the sheep grazing in the neighbour's paddocks. What's not to love?

Marissa Killey and her husband, David, moved to Oberon in May last year and haven't looked back. They sold their 1928 two-bedroom Chester Hill home and from the proceeds bought a four-bedroom home with a huge garage and plenty of room for their four kids to ride bikes.

"My brother David lives at Bathurst and we wanted to be close, but not too close," Mrs Killey says. "We had been looking at Oberon for two years, visiting regularly and asking questions. We wanted to be out of Sydney before the children started school."

Mrs Killey says it helps to like cold weather, with several snowfalls this winter. "We're here to stay and I hope my children love it enough that they'll stay, too."

© 2008 Sun Herald

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